DOWNINGTOWN — The pioneers of the STEM Academy left a legacy to make Downingtown’s newest school “as great as it could possibly be.”

Before the construction of the school was completed three years ago, more than 400 freshman from the Downingtown Area School District applied for a spot. The school opened in the fall of 2011 with 225 sophomores. The first class graduated 174 students on June 4, 2014.

“Because the school is brand new, we came in as sophomores, but as sophomores, we were really seniors for three years because there was no class above us,” said graduate John George Armstrong. “Just trying to pave the way as pioneers without any precedent, that was truly a unique experience.”

Downingtown STEM Academy ranked No. 1 in the state, according to the school performance profile. The test, new this year, communicates schools’ performance results to inform the public of the academic measurements in schools.

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“The Downingtown STEM Academy’s first graduating class has set the bar very high for the future,” Superintendent Lawrence Mussoline said. “We are very proud of the headmaster’s leadership team, the faculty, our parents who stuck with us, and these seniors for going beyond accomplishing the goals of this magnet school.”

Armstrong said that attending STEM was a “risk worth taking for the amount of opportunities that STEM could present in the IB (international baccalaureate) curriculum.”

Mussoline thanked the pioneer teachers for their willingness to “teach and lead this school, based on a concept.”

Campbell said that the IB program prepared the students for college while the career readiness included the STEM pathways, guest speakers and a graduation practicum.

“The goal here was to come up with something different, and to have the students learn in a different way, to give them a very rigorous program with a very select menu of courses, compared to the wide varieties of electives that the other high schools offer,” Campbell said. “The main idea of the school was college and career prep-readiness.”

All graduates will be attending a four-year university with 147 of the 174 students planning to study a STEM pathway - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Campbell said that the graduates have accumulated more than $12.5 million in scholarship and awards.

Campbell said the students are “risk-takers” as they entered the IB program, the first of its kind for Downingtown.

“I believe the 174 students that came here really took advantage of a great opportunity and made the best of it,” Campbell said. “They made the school the best it could be, and I’m proud of them for that.”

Graduate Kylah Gaul said the students had struggled with the IB program as the students and teachers alike lacked experience with the program during the first year. She said they learned to be flexible as the process of the program unfolded, and now “we just left such a great path for everybody else to follow.”

Graduate Cayla Castells described it as a “legacy that we left as the guinea pigs of the STEM Academy.”

Campbell noted that people visit the school because of the STEM program in which every student at Downingtown STEM has to be in the IB program, as well as for “our innovation, because of how we’re different than other schools.”

Gaul said many students like her, Castells and Armstrong became involved as student leaders early on at STEM Academy. The three served as student ambassadors for the school, in which they tour guides during orientation, for other school officials and business partners.

The three were among several student leaders to participate in the graduation ceremony.

By attending STEM Academy, the students were able to see what they liked and what they didn’t like during job shadowing and internship experiences. Castells and Armstrong said that being exposed to the work during their internships has helped them decide a career path to follow.

The first graduating class had completed 3,600 hours of job shadowing as a graduation requirement.

Armstrong said that the internship program was beneficial as “you learn a lot, even thorough failure.”

Armstrong discovered an interest to study biology at University of Pennsylvania after he interned in a pharmaceutical field. Castells, who plans to study engineering at Pennsylvania State University, knew she wanted to be an engineer. She said that STEM “seemed like the perfect place.”

Gaul said she applied to STEM to challenge herself. She has plans to study engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Gaul said that she “hated” the STEM pathways before she attended the school.

“I don’t think we would have seen that if we didn’t experience those things for ourselves and STEM has allowed us to do that,” Gaul said.

They said that their teachers emphasized group work that helped inform them how they work best by themselves and with others in collaborative projects.

“We’ve learned how to deal with people in real life, we’ve learned how to work with others and communicate,” Gaul said.

Castells said that those lessons were meant to make the students “prepared for the rest of life.”

Gaul said their experiences will help them learn how to be flexible as they were “guinea pigs learning that not everything is going to work out perfectly.”

“I think that will constantly happen in life, not only in school, but in all senses of life,” Gaul said. “I think we’ve all learned how to handle those kinds of situations better because of our experiences here.”

Castells said that they have an appreciation for their school as they it was a different experience than their respective high schools. The first graduating class was the only class to attend Downingtown West or Downingtown East for one year before attending STEM.

Downingtown students now apply in eighth grade to attend STEM Academy.

Castells said that most students do not have the opportunity to “literally leave a legacy. When we came there was nothing.” She said the student leaders are hopeful that school traditions carry on from what they established as “it’s not always about remembering us, (it’s) remembering what we did here.”

Armstrong said that their challenge to establish a “blaze ahead when there’s no path set before you” was fun but that the student leaders faced hard times when they created school traditions.

“It was the perfect opportunity for us to make really a difference in the community and hopefully make a brand new school as great as it could possibly be,” Gaul said. “And I think we’ve done a great job.”